in his journeyings, "Give me to drink." She wondered why he asked, but he said to her, "Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him, shall never thirst, but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into EVERLASTING LIFE."

May he, by his Spirit, lead you all to seek and find this living water! Amen.

The Forgotten Lesson.

EXODUS xxxii.

A child's saying: "I forgot"-The lesson from SinaiWhat is idolatry ?-Difference between the first and second commandments — Romanist image-worshippers, and their excuses-Absence of Moses, and the people's thoughtsAaron's perplexity-The calf intended as a sign of GODMoses returns-His anger-Aaron's poor excuse- -The people's punishment and forgiveness-Had they but thought! -God's Book of Remembrance.

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I DO not think that there is any saying more among young folks than, Oh, I forgot!" Have not my young readers often heard it? Father says, "Robert, why did you not do this work I told you?" Oh, I forgot!" Or mother says, "Mary, why did you go with that companion, from whom I said you were to keep away?" "Oh, I forgot!" But sometimes it is even worse than this. Little boy, how came you, yesterday, to tell that lie? Ah! you "forgot" that God could hear every word. And you, little girl, what a sight it was to see you in that passion with your playfellow the other day! You "forgot," indeed, the example of the gentle Jesus, and the command to be like him. But, I really think that sometimes young people

forget on purpose. They say, "We could not remember," when they ought to say, "We would not." It is not always pleasant to think of the eye of God upon them when they do wrong; or of the happiness which comes in the end through doing right. So they leave off thinking, and listen to temptation. Self speaks very

loudly, and thus they are led on to do one wrong thing after another. Children, recollect this-that if you forget, God always remembers.

Now I have to tell you of some people who most strangely and wickedly forgot a most wonderful lesson. This lesson had been given them from a mountain by the voice of God himself. Not six weeks had gone by since they had heard it. And how they were terrified then! The great mountain seemed to tremble and rock to and fro, and the thunder sounded like a mighty trumpet, and the lightning came flashing fast and fearfully out of the thick black cloud that covered the mountain-top. Do you think they could ever forget that sight? They had been led there into that great valley of the desert, in front of that high mountain, for this very reason, that God might teach them what they ought to be and to do. And he had taught them. A great voice, such as they had never heard before, had spoken out of heaven; and the first things it had said were such as these :—

"Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
"Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven

image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them.”

Now the people who stood before that mountain had come out of a land where the inhabitants were accustomed always to make images of the gods they worshipped; and this was a sin of which some of those who now listened to these words of God had been guilty. But now, surely, they would see how wrong it was. The greatest god worshipped in the land they had left was made in the image of an ox or calf. His name was Apis. Mind, the worshippers of the ox, or his image, did not really think that to be really the god, but only his representation, or, as we might say, his picture; so that when they bowed down to it, they were truly worshipping something they could not see.

This is what many idolaters say now. Ask a Hindoo if he really thinks that ugly black stone, before which he is saying his prayers, can help or save him, and he will only laugh at you. The stone is meant to represent or to remind him of the god Vishnu, or Ram, or Doorga, or some great power which he knows he cannot

see.

Now, there are people, calling themselves Christians, who think that just in the same way they may make images, or pictures, not of Doorga, or Ram, or Apis, but of the great God

who made heaven and earth, or of his Son, Jesus Christ. Perhaps some of you, my young friends, have been in the houses of Roman Catholics. Hanging up in the bedroom you have seen a little cross, with the image of a man bleeding and dying upon it. You have seen people bow down before that cross; it may be to say their prayers to it. How can you do so?" you have said; "you are worshipping images." "No such thing," has been the answer. "We know very well that this is not our Saviour; but it reminds us of his love, and therefore we fall down before it when we pray to him."

Are these persons doing right or wrong? Those words which God spoke upon the mountain shall teach us :-First, he said, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me;" not Vishnu, or Ram, or Apis. That is the first commandment. And then he said, "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image; thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them." Now, the Roman Catholic will say, "I do keep the first commandment, because I have no other gods but the one God." "Yes; but," we may answer, "you do break the second, because you bow down yourselves before graven images." That is the reason, I think, why the second commandment is not to be found in Roman Catholic children's catechisms.* It would speak too plainly against their practice.

* Mark! children's catechisms. In all their larger manuals